Rambles about stuff I like.

A ramble about my phone – and then a summary of some Moby Dick

I was especially excited for that episode, because it was gonna have Jack “Possible future Joker” Gruber on it. But ever since I’ve got my phone, that’s all I want to do.

First of all – there’s this dating/hookup app called Tinder, which allows me to women instantaneously. I’ve already got more dates than I can handle! And for a guy who doesn’t like socializing, this is a precarious position. I’ve got a date tomorrow, in fact, which I may just blow off in favour of getting some Let’s Plays done. Or just plain’ ol not going outside is a possibility too, we’ll see.

Thing is, I like being alone so much, that if I ever get the chance to be alone, I’m going to take it. At the moment, I live with my parents and my brother – so it’s rare I get the house all to myself for a day. But I know that my brother is working tomorrow evening, and I think my parents are gone up to the cottage over night. So it’s likely I’ll spend the morning working on math, then a solitary afternoon cleaning my house, working out and going to bed early.

Because man, am I ever tired today – again! I keep going to bed around 9:00pm, but my stupid brain doesn’t let me fall asleep until 10:30. Which is stupid of my brain, because my alarm goes off at 5:00am, and after hitting snooze twice (and really relishing how amazingly comfy my bed is) I get right up and get to work.

Thing is, with my new phone – my uninterrupted work time is getting shorter and shorter. Because at 8:00am or so, girls start waking up and texting me. “So what do you do?” is a VERY common refrain. I keep answering with a straight face – but I sorta think I should start giving out joke responses, just to stand out.

Well, we’ll see. This smart phone has thrown my whole preferred solitary lifestyle into turmoil. Now I’m on instagram – and the people I’m following liked my photo, so I’ve gotta like their photo, etc… I’ve gotta sign up for facebook to get on tinder – and now people are messaging me on facebook. And on and on and on…

Despite being a super-awesome piece of technology, my Brave New Phone is always on. It’s always beeping with another tantalizing piece of information to distract me with. I tell ya, my productivity rate has plummeted since I got that phone.

Anyhoo – moving on from my stupid phone. I’m reading Moby Dick, as I’ve said in recent posts – and at about 200 pages it starts getting good. We’ve moved past all the chapters about Whale biology and terminology, and we can finally get to the action.

The first piece of action is when the crew of the Pequod capture a sperm whale. It’s tremendously exciting – they lower about 5 boats into the water, and go chasing after the whale. The harpooners throw their sticks at the whale – from inside the boat – and there’s madness which ensues, as each harpoon is tied to a huge long rope inside the boat. As the whale flees from the boats, the ropes start sizzling out, going this way and that – threatening to injure anyone who doesn’t get out of its way.

And then they manage to catch the whale – actually, the whale is primarily captured by the second mate, Stubb. Afterwards, as they are hauling the whale out of the water to fasten it to the ship, Stubb demands a shank of whale be cooked into a steak for him. Then there’s a humorously racist chapter wherein Stubb yells at the old negro cook about how shitty his whale steak is. And the cook talks like “dis and dere dat” and you can picture the caricature, with big lips and a moon face, like you saw in Vaudeville posters in the early 1900’s.

Regardless, after they kill the whale, they need to fasten him aboard the ship for a night. It takes all hands to cut and clean the whale – so the captain gives the entire crew a night off, to rest up for the cleaning in the morning. At night, a horde of sharks come and start tearing at the whale. This necessitates protective action by the crew – so various harpooners lean over the boat and start killing the sharks. This causes more madness, as the sharks get driven into a frenzy by the fresh blood, and the water around the boat becomes a filthy sea of red.

Finally, they cut and gut the whale – and attach the whale’s head to the side of the boat. Then comes a weird chapter where the Pequod runs into another ship – which has essentially been taken over by a lunatic who’s declared himself the angel Gabriel. The two captains of the ship try to have a talk – but as the other ship has been stricken by plague, the two captains stay on board their own ships, and have a conversation by shouting at one another. Whenever Ahab shouts a message towards the ship – the captain will begin to shout back, only to be shouted over by Gabriel. Gabriel, despite being insane (and who reportedly does no work aboard his ship) nevertheless has rapt command of the crew, and the crew are driven into a frenzy by Gabriel.

I believe this Gabriel chapter is a bit of foreshadowing – as Gabriel is shouting non-stop about the evils of killing whales, and how Moby Dick will eat Ahab.

Anyhoo, the latest chapter I just read, Stubb and Flask (the 3rd mate), capture a right whale, so they can lash its head to the other side of the boat, so that the Pequod will be evenly balanced.

Yeah, whereas before I was all complainy about how boring some of the chapters were. I see now they were necessary (well, most of them.) And now that I’ve gotten used to the language, the book is now wall-to-wall action! I can’t wait to read more tomorrow!